


I will catch you when you fall, hold you while you fall asleep

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Strained Friendships, Team as Family, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 09:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20255923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Somehow, Jane and Vic somehow spending time together out on the town, and honestly, nobody could have ever expected that to go well, could they?All he knew was that Vic hurt more than he ever thought was possible, and Jane was there- was it there, or was it another one of the many people who lived inside Jane's body?- and all he wanted was to go home.But then Jane was there, no matter what, even when Vic was being an absolute asshole and didn't deserve her kindness, and he knew without a doubt that he was going to make it up to her.





	I will catch you when you fall, hold you while you fall asleep

**Author's Note:**

> I love Jane??? I really do?? And I realized that I hadn't written a Victor fic before, so I thought 'why not kill two birds with one stone' and write them both in the same fic. In case you weren't sure, the personalities that appear talking to Vic, in order, are- Hammerhead, Babydoll, Penny Farthing, The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, Merry Andrew (don't ask, I found her in an article that I can link if you want but she sounded interesting and bland at the same time) and Flit. I don't know why but I just liked the different personalities treating everyone differently and I wanted to juxtapose that between Jane and how she treats Vic. I don't know. It's weird. 
> 
> But I really liked how this turned out so let me know if you like it or if I totally fucked it all up x

Vic wasn't sure what was happening, but he knew that he hurt, a deep, overwhelming hurt that sunk in his bones and sung in his veins and it hurt so god damn much that he could hardly make his eyes open at all.  
  
He was lying on the ground, the pavement hard under his back, and every nerve in his body tingled with agony. G.R.I.D was sending him messages, but the robotic voice no longer worked, and the messages were patchy at best.  
  
There was a commotion off to his side, the scraping of heavy combat boots and the tickle of hair on his chest, and when he squinted open his eyes, he saw the very blurry tattoo of a winged skull on a woman’s chest. "Get the fuck up you useless pile of junk,"  
  
The sound of rushing water, "Cyborg? Hey, Cyborg, Mr Cyborg, get up, you need to be ok to fight crime and be a hero and save people, get up! Please, please, _please_!"

“Sir?” Someone different this time, but familiar. “Sir? Mr Cyborg? I apologise, I’m sure you’re in a great deal of pain at the moment, but I must implore you to get up. Most of us are starting to get worried and none of us like being out in the rain. Can you stand?”  
  
Then there were softer hands on him, familiar and concerned. "Vic? Get up, man. We need to go. We need to get the fuck out of dodge."  
  
Gentle arms wrapped under his armpits and lifted him up, his arm slung over a shoulder, and he was roughly carried through the streets, his feet dragging uselessly behind him and the last thought in his mind before darkness took him was, _Jane?_  
  
He woke up as Jane shoved open the heavy double doors to the mansion, and she almost dropped him as they crossed the threshold. He heard the sound of a pot smashing to the ground. "Jane? What the fuck did you do to him?"  
  
"Shut the fuck up, Larry, I didn't do it. We were running from the cops and he fell off the building."  
  
"Why were you running from the cops?"  
  
"Scarlett got excited."  
  
"Oh for the love of- I thought the cops would have liked Vic? You know, he helps them cut down crime."  
  
"Yeah, the cops are really going to love a vigilante who does their jobs for them. Now, are you going to go get Cliff or are you going to help me?"  
  
Vic felt another pair of arms around his back and his arm slung over Larry's shoulder and a grunt in his ear. "You didn't carry him all the way here by yourself, did you?"  
  
"Well, I tried to call Hammerhead but I don't think she likes Vic and we all know that Flit does whatever the fuck she wants, so yeah, I carried him here all by myself."  
  
It took a little while and a lot of grunting but eventually, Jane and Larry finally managed to heft Vic to the couch and rest him down on the cushions. While Larry rushed off to find Cliff and Jane tried to take care of the worst of his wounds, Rita walked in, screaming at the top of her lungs about the blood on her carpet. 

While everyone was rushing around, trying to find some way to help, and Cliff made his way down the stairs and towards the other end of the house where Vic had been laid. Someone had their hands on him, and he thought that it might have been Jane because she was the only one whose whereabouts he couldn’t discern, but the hands on him were too gentle to belong to Jane.

He was just so tired that he could hardly open his eyes, and G.R.I.D was sending him broken messages and damage reports that Vic could hardly make sense of, but he knew his body hurt, and he didn’t need a computer to tell him any of that.

Suddenly, there was shouting, and two cold, metal arms wrapped around him and his brain was in his toes as he was lifted from the couch and ran through the building with such speed and force he nearly threw up. But soon he was asleep, and he could feel no more.

He woke up a few times. He wasn’t sure why, or how, but he was in one of the rooms of the mansion, and there was a sad-looking woman who looked like Jane but wasn’t sitting beside his bed. She was looking at him with tears in her eyes, and beside her sat an easel and her arms were slick with paint. “She’s worried,” she moaned when she noticed that Vic was awake. “She doesn’t want to admit it, but she is. We all are.”

The next time was a woman he had never seen before, still wearing Jane’s skin, but completely utterly different. “I’ve never met you, but Jane seems to trust you, so that’s good enough for me. I mean, it feels like a huge waste of time, but Jane will yell at us if we abandon you, so I guess we’re staying.”

Another woman, hair up and frizzy, arms crossed over her chest, chewing on a bright pink glob of bubble-gum, sat beside his bed as if she had always been there. “She worries about you. I don’t know why, but she does. Your one lucky bastard.”

It took a while for him to fully wake up and open his eyes all the way, but when it finally happened, the woman sitting beside his bed was Jane, with her eyes closed and her hands crossed, looking both peaceful and annoyed at the same time. In the corner of the room, between the window and the door, was a painting of him wrapped in thorny vines and brightly coloured flowers, bleeding and beautiful. When Vic cleared his throat, Jane snapped her eyes open and sat forward so fast that Vic thought she had given herself whiplash, her hair tangled around her face. “Oh thank fuck. Chief said he didn’t think you’d wake up, especially not this soon.”

Wincing, Vic tried to sit up a little and was slightly glad that Jane made no move to help him. “Well, I’m a little surprised that you give any kind of fuck, but I guess I should be glad,” he sent a sideways look at her. Her hair was more unkempt than usual, her fists were knotted in her jeans and she had dark circles under her eyes. She looked like she hadn’t slept and Vic felt a little guilty for snapping her out of her reverie. “Sorry for waking you. You look like shit.”

Jane shook her head, arching her back and rising her arms to shove back her unruly hair, holding her hands up with her fingers threaded in the strands. “Nah, I wasn’t sleeping. I was just talking to the others. Hammerhead is a little annoyed that I wasted time carrying your ass home instead of saving my own hide and Babydoll literally will _not_ shut up about you, and Doctor Harrison won’t stop talking about wanting to come out so she can talk to you herself, so I thought that I’d better… smooth things over with them.”

“Oh,” Vic frowned. “I didn’t think you could talk to them without… you know. Going comatose. That’s what happened last time, anyway.”

“Not all the time,” Jane shrugged. “I’ve gotten better at it lately though, they’re a lot less pushy and now they just mostly let me do my god damn job.”

Vic didn’t really understand, but he nodded as if he did. “Do you… do you remember what happened? Last night?”

Snorting, Jane made a face and Vic felt his heart plummet down into his gut. “Last night? You mean Monday. But yeah- why wouldn’t I remember? I’m not the one who jumped off a fucking building to escape a bunch of cops, so it’s no real surprise that you don’t even remember what day it is.”

“I highly doubt that I would have jumped off of a building on my own volition unless someone pushed me off, or I was, you know, _unconscious_,” a thought struck him and a frown pulled at the edges of his lips. “What happened to the cops?”

“Lucy Fugue took care of them, don’t worry,” Jane shrugged at Vic’s aghast expression. “What? Did you just expect them all to let the cops kill me? You’re lucky I was able to keep Katy back before she killed them all. What? They were asking me questions! Katy hates being interrogated!”

“Was Lucy the one who pushed me off the roof?”

Jane looked offended, and Vic thought that maybe Jane herself wasn’t the only one a little bit pissed off at him. “No, Lucy Fugue didn’t push you off the fucking roof. We don’t hate you that much.” She stood. “So this is the thanks I get for saving your fucking ass. Next time, I’ll just leave you there to bleed out and die or for the cops to find you and beat the shit out of you instead.”

“Wait- Jane.” Vic reached out a heavy hand and gripped Jane’s arm before she could pass him. She didn’t face him, but she honestly looked more upset than Vic would have expected. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I just… this is just not at all what I expected to find. Every time I’ve woken up, one of your… personalities have been by my side, and now _you’re_ here, and I’m being an asshole. Thank you. I know I haven’t been acting like it, but I really am thankful for what you and the others have done for me, bringing me here, staying by my side, making sure I don’t die in my sleep. So… thanks.”

“Well,” Jane didn’t even turn around and Vic felt like an absolute asshole. “You can’t expect everyone to be heroes. But you're welcome. Even if you don’t really deserve it.”

And then she was gone, pulling roughly out of Vic’s grasp and storming out the door before he even had a chance to open his mouth to call her back, and he was left alone in the room with a creepy-beautiful portrait of himself staring back at him, wondering if he had done something wrong.

An hour later, Larry pushed his way into the room, arms laden full of trays of food piled high with greasy and delicious smelling dishes that Vic had never seen before, and he turned to Vic with his version of a bandaged-smile. “Oh good, Jane said you’d finally woken up. I glad that you’re still awake. How do you feel?”

“Like I got thrown off a building,” Vic said, monotone and Larry snorted as he began to gently lay the heavy plates of food down on the bed and the side tables. “How’s Jane? She came in here and stormed out. I uh… I think I might have said something to upset her.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Larry said as he helped Vic sit up the rest of the way and piled pillows up behind his back. “It’s Jane, most things upset her, or at least one of her other personalities. She’ll cool down soon enough. Oh, well, maybe not soon. Eventually. I know this is hard to believe, but Jane is one of the most level-headed out of all of them. She’ll be fine.”

Scowling, Vic snatched the cutlery that Larry offered to him out of his hand. “Yeah, thanks. Like that actually helped. ‘Yeah, she could be fine, but until then, she could hate your guts’. Real helpful, Larry.”

It as if Vic had pressed the pause button on a video. Larry stopped what he was doing, standing completely still for a moment, and slowly turned his face to Vic. “Well, if you didn’t want to know the answer, then you shouldn’t have asked the question.”

Oh- _fuck_. Vic really was being a complete asshole. “Sorry man,” He said, but it sounded fake even to his own ears, even though he was genuine in his sentiment. “I guess I’m just in a bad mood today.”

Larry shrugged and started moving again, shuffling around the room and doing odd tasks, like straightening the bed and opening the blinds. “It’s fine. We all have our off days. And I mean, you just fell off a building, I think you have good reason to be upset. Don’t worry about it. I’ve had a literal lifetime to deal with Rita and her outbursts.”

“Yeah but- still,” Vic winced. “You’ve made me a meal and come in here to keep me company, and I’ve snapped at you. I had no reason to do that.” He looked down at the decadent array of food on his lap. “Like I did with Jane.”

Sighing, Larry reached over and placed a light, comforting hand on Vic’s shoulder. “Jane… she’ll get over it. She understands. She, more than the rest of us, maybe, understands what it’s like to have bad-days. Her own kind of bad-days, sure, but she’s not about to put the belief in your head that her bad-days mean more than your bad-days. She’s better than that. You might not know it, but deep down, Jane is… better than most of us, really.”

Vic frowned at him. “How so?”

“Well,” Larry said as he sat gently on the end of the bed, careful of Vic’s feet and the plates of food he had placed precariously on the doona cover. “I mean; she’s had to deal with a lot of shit in her life. She’s been hurt just as much as the rest of us have, maybe even more. I’m not too sure, I try not to ask, it’s none of my business. But despite it all, she still tries to be there for you. Sure, she fucks off often and you can’t find her all the time and sometimes you just want her to leave you the hell alone, but she’s always there. There are so many people crammed into her… some of them are real pieces of shit, but some of them are kind and nice and as close to peaceful as Jane can ever get, but despite all those other peoples voices in her head, she’s still kind. She’s still our family. She’s still _Jane_.” He paused. “You know what I mean?”

He didn’t, not really, but Vic nodded anyway with a smile, and Larry smiled back in return. Or, well, Vic thought he smiled. It was a little hard to tell under all those layers of bandages. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do. Thanks.”

Nodding, Larry squeezed Vic’s ankle and stood, brushing invisible dust off of his long worn coat and walking to the door. He paused beside the window, head tilted towards the eerie-yet-lovely portrait of Vic. “Ah, I see The Hangman’s Daughter came by to see you,” Larry laughed. “She must like you. She doesn’t usually give any us of gifts this… nice. Mild. Lucky you.”

And then Larry too, was gone, closing the door behind him and whistling as he made his way down the hallway. Vic was left alone in his bed, buried in pillows and blankets and hidden under plates piled with delicious, freshly cooked food that Vic wasn’t sure he could eat all of.

He could hear Jane somewhere in the rest of the house, shouting or singing and doing whatever Jane did when she was alone and he felt deep somewhere that no matter what, he was going to make it up to her for saving his life. He may have been an asshole, sure, but even if Jane never forgave him he would at least make sure she knew that Vic loved her regardless, her and all her other personalities. Because you can’t love Jane if you can't love Babydoll and Silver Tongue and Lucy Fugue and Hammerhead and Sun Daddy and Flaming Katy and everyone else.

Because Larry was right. Jane was the best of them, no matter what you thought.

When he drifted off to sleep, full and satisfied, he floated in the space of half-awake-mostly-asleep for a little while, and when he felt a presence open the door quietly and sit in the chair beside his bed, humming softly, he smiled in his sleep, and made a mental note to thank Jane for her company and undeserved kindness in the morning.


End file.
